


Drift

by stephanericher



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (time passes), Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 08:21:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6044707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Five times Ren catches Hux sleeping)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drift

The vacuum seal releases with a hiss and the door slides open; Ren steps inside, the coarse carpet muffling the thud of his boots. Hux makes it awfully easy to sneak up on him, or he would be if his senses weren’t sharper than the prow of the ship itself (sometimes Ren wonders if he’s got some kind of latent Force-sensitivity that only shows up in flashes that he misses, but it would be impossible for the Supreme Leader not to have found it by now).

He doesn’t appear to have noticed Ren’s entrance, though; he’s lying on the bed, on top of the perfectly-pressed sheets. His comlink and blinking datapad lie on the table beside him, right next to Ren’s own comlink, right where he’d dropped it last night and forgot it this morning. If Hux were awake he’d probably launch himself into another lecture about official military communication devices (the lectures which he is apparently even more eager to give Ren now that they’re involved like this, as if that gives him some sort of extra authority). But he’s asleep and the only sounds in the room are his quiet breaths and the drip of the caf machine (knowing him, he’s probably timed it to the second against his alarm and no matter how much more efficient he claims it is he’d probably wasted more time on the calculation than it would take to have some slack).

Ren’s hand twitches; he could just reach out with the force, pull the comlink to his hand, and leave, so he can go back to training and leave Hux dreaming about his stupid plans for finishing Starkiller. He curls his fingers against his palm into a fist, nails digging into the inside of his glove. Hux sighs in his sleep, the sound almost drowned by the dripping caf. He wants to flop down on the bed next to Hux and drop his helmet to the carpet and crawl under the covers and sleep, even though he’s nowhere close to tired.

He flicks his wrist finally; the comlink smacks into his glove and he clips it to his belt, turning and exiting the way he’d come.

* * *

He’s gotten lost in deciphering the coordinates, piecing together intelligence and nearly destroying the data several times—there is zero consideration for Hux or the _Finalizer_ or the damn budget in his decision to hold back. He is only concerned for the data, mistrustful (not paranoid) about the chances of recovery if he destroys the data before the scheduled system-wide backup and the time it took to find this small piece in the first place and try to fit it in with the rest (somedays it seems as if he’s no closer to finding Skywalker than when he started) will have been lost; the Resistance could have gained that much on them.

And it’s late now, too late to do anything but sleep (not that day or night makes any difference out in space but Ren’s tired, so it’s late). He’s still thinking about Skywalker, how fucking preachy he could get, how maddeningly serene he could seem when Ren was at his angriest. It’s not something he wants to think about but this search always brings it out of him anyway, like some kind of involuntary bug in his system.

But he’s reached the door; it’s time to sleep, time to fall into bed until the next day, time to leave his mind to work on its own toward the next breakthrough. He punches in the passcode (the required number of digits is too goddamn long) and waits. The keypad beeps and the door remains closed. It’s too late for the computer to be pulling this shit; Ren raises his hand to punch the little machine, to drive it deep into the durasteel wall—and then he stops. This is the door to Hux’s quarters; he’d typed in the passcode to his own. He punches the keypad anyway, but not hard enough to do any damage (it should have known what he meant in the first place). It beeps again in complaint; Ren grits his teeth and begins to type in the correct sequence, pressing his finger down against each key hard enough to hurt.

The rooms are dark and quiet, the bedroom especially so. Hux is asleep, lying perfectly still on his back. The covers on the bare side—Ren’s side—are creased sharply enough for the corners to cut through the dark, waiting for Ren to tuck himself in between them and tangle them until they hold the wrinkles and forget the creases. He releases the clasp on his helmet.

“Ren?”

Hux’s voice is sleepy, his Force presence sleepier, jumbled up like dice shaken in a gambler’s palm. He’s squinting in the semidarkness, and Ren lets the dim, distant starlight through the viewport catch his face as he sets down his helmet. He sits down on the bed and kicks off his boots, dragging his toes along the back seams a few times before freeing each foot. That’s enough for tonight; the rest is too complicated when sleep calls. He pulls the covers out from under him and shoves himself between them and the sheets, sliding closer to Hux.

“Don’t sleep in your clothes.”

“You going to take them off for me?”

“Ass.”

Ren bumps his shoulder, and Hux makes a disgruntled sound that might be kind of cute coming from someone other than him. His body is warm; the covers are warm; it’s the kind of temperature that’s designed to lull humans into a lazy haze. Hux’s breathing evens out; he’s slipping back into sleep, fingers slackening next to Ren’s thigh. And Ren’s not far behind him, body barely settled against the mattress before his eyelids latch themselves shut.

* * *

Hux is always the first to shake off the afterglow, even when Ren comes before him. It’s probably something to do with his personality, the part of his mind that needs organization and cleanliness letting the rest of him have some fun for only the allocated time slot and then springing back to the forefront at the earliest chance it gets and then Hux goes from breathing hard against the pillow with his swollen lips open to sitting up and wiping himself off with the dirty sheets and trying to shoo Ren off the bed so he can change them.

Ren does not want to move right now. He’s still lying halfway on top of Hux; their legs are still tangled; they’re still stuck together with sweat and come; it’s still pretty damn comfortable.

“You can change them in the morning. Get the cleaning droid to do it.”

“They’re dirty. We’re dirty.”

“The fresher’ll still work tomorrow,” Ren says through a yawn.

“And it’s working now,” says Hux.

He makes another move to get up; Ren tightens his grip.

“Don’t.”

Hux sighs. He’s really not putting up much of a fight, but he’s tired, too; he’ll never admit it but the preparations for the base are peeling away at his endurance piece by piece, and now that it’s in the home stretch he can’t hide it as well.

“Ren.”

“No.”

“You’re a child,” says Hux, but the irritation in his voice is tinged with something softer.

He doesn’t make another attempt at getting up again, instead settling himself properly under the covers, extracting his legs from between Ren’s and shifting against the pillows. Ren closes his eyes, pulling Hux a little closer again. The rhythm of his heartbeat is steady but not intrusive; the shape of his body fits comfortably against Ren’s.

“Hux.”

He doesn’t answer. Ren reaches out with the Force, feeling for the particular twitchy tension of when Hux is attempting to not give him the satisfaction of a response, but he doesn’t find it. Hux’s presence is already shrouded in the slight relaxation of sleep, like a particle in a planetary ring drifting through orbit. He still smells like sex and sweat and the remnants of the day; Ren hums under his breath. They should do it like this more often.

* * *

Sometimes Ren has dreams, of wading through the murky darkness and falling in, of drowning in pressure and trying to move forward without knowing which way forward is and somehow being dragged toward the light no matter where he tries to turn, of the light calling him in consonant overtones and seeping through his shut eyelids and bathing him in the wrong kind of warmth, of Han Solo’s face as his knees buckle and he lets himself fall. And as much as he tries not to let them seep under his skin, they’re like parasites trapped just below the surface and no matter how much he scratches they don’t go away; no matter how much he tries to hone them into focused darkness they don’t hold the shape. They press against the twin scars on each arm, up from underneath the jagged line that cuts his face in two.

He stares at the ceiling, its measured metallic dullness, the bolts between its sheets at perfectly regular intervals. It’s a shitty distraction, not really a distraction at all. He blinks; Han Solo’s face flashes across the inside of his eyelids. He turns his head to look beside him; Hux is not bothered by the ticking drive that’s pushing Ren farther and farther away from sleep. Even his Force presence is as calm as it ever gets (which is still more than wound down enough to sleep and a more-than-enviable position right now). He cannot feel what Ren feels the force, not the way Ren sometimes feels Hux’s anxieties clawing at him from within—not that it matters, because Hux always stuffs them back down soon enough.

His jaw is clenched but his fingers are not, unfurled like a new flag in still air against the sheets. His fingers are proportionally long considering the slightness of his palm, but they’re still much smaller and more delicate than Ren’s, as if his body was suited to plucking the strings of an instrument or sewing fine embroidery (and as it is, they move in complicated patterns across screens, dragging data and moving it faster than any human can even see but Ren’s still following the flow of Hux’s fingers with his eyes under the mask, moving as seamlessly under their black leather coats as they do bare against his skin). His knuckles are unblemished, the lines not broken by deep scars the way half of Ren’s are, his nails clean and too short and smoothly-cut to cut skin but long enough to leave a mark, as regulated and pristine as the rest of him even though he rarely presents them.

He nods off, already dreaming of Hux’s hands through his hair, pressing at the knots on his back, Hux’s fingers entwining in his own.

* * *

The alarm cuts through the stillness like a fighter plane out for a joy ride whose engine suddenly faults, crashing and burning and screaming. Ren squeezes his eyes shut, half-groaning, and buries his face in the pillow. It does no good. He feels Hux move beside him to turn it off; the sound dies but continues to ring in his head. The mattress dips slightly as Hux pushes on it for leverage to sit up; Ren groans and reaches out with his arm. He’s too slow. Hux’s feet are already on the ground; his weight is already off the mattress; he’s already heading across the room. The bed is empty but the blankets are warm and Hux is quiet even when he’s half-awake (and the sounds of the alarm have finally faded), and sleep is too enticing to keep at bay any longer.

He wakes up again in the middle of rolling over; the bed is no longer empty beside him and instead of landing on the soft tangle of sheets his arm is blocked by the shape of Hux’s thighs. Ren blinks, lifting his head to look—it’s unusual for Hux to do work in bed in the morning; he usually sits at his desk and drinks his caf while his hair dries from the fresher (and lately it’s barely been that; he’ll stand and deliver holorecordings and query the troop records because even months after FN-2187 he’s still on high alert for another potential traitor lurking under a white helmet). But he’s not standing and he’s not at his desk and he’s not doing work at all now.

He’s fallen back asleep, chest rising steady as an engine firing at low power. The datapad lies with its face against Hux’s chest, kept in place by his loosely-tucked arm. The damp towel is still draped around his neck; he smells like generic shaving cream and recycled space water. From Ren’s angle looking up at his face the shadows under his eyes seem pronounced and deep, deeper than usual—stupid, stubborn overachiever. He needs this, even if he’ll wake up sore from sitting like this later and he’ll be even more irritable about the time he thinks he’s lost.

But he’ll deal with that when the time comes. Right now they should both be sleeping.

**Author's Note:**

> if you know me you know how much i love writing about people sleeping. i guess this is the logical conclusion lmao
> 
> //any criticism/feedback is much appreciated esp re: the title. i'll probably come back to fix some thing later but i guess it's staying up for now


End file.
